My work applies a folkloric and historicist lens to medieval and early modern British literature and forward into popular culture.
My interests are in how the narratives of the folk are both read in and repressed by mainstream accounts.

Mascot for #DevilDiss

Mascot for #DevilDiss

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Planning but not writing?

This week I've been more obsessed than usual with my Milton project.
But a sneaking thought crept into my head. This class is about learning HOW to write a thesis or dissertation. However, the end project is NOT a thesis or dissertation, instead it is only a prospectus. So, that's what I realized this week. I'm spending all semester finalizing this project (after working on it and researching it since last spring) with never writing it.

I don't think I can do that.

I don't see how I can work over a year on something and not see it through. So, what to do? Here is the connundrum. I am exhausted. Part of it is the commute every week to school (5 hours round trip). Part of it is the stress of work (making me just want to curl under the covers more) and part is just that it's been a cold, grey winter. I don't know where I will find the energy or time to write a 35-80 page thesis. And I wouldn't have any input in the drafts. There is no advisor, there is no end result. I would do it, just to do it. And yet, I can't comprehend doing all this work and not seeing it through to its final result.
There's a little over a month and a half left of class. And class assignments due. And work to balance on top of that. But I have to figure it out. Wish I was in a program that required a master's thesis.
We'll see. I'm sure that I'll be letting you know.

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About Me

I am a PhD candidate in British and Irish Literary Studies
at the University of New Mexico. My research focuses on how folkloric
characters are represented in literature and popular culture,
specifically the devil.

I regularly write reviews and articles for Sequart Organization. My most recent scholarly work analyzes the function of the folkloric forest in Twin Peaks for an In Focus section of Cinema Journal (2016), the functional aesthetic of the Nightmare on Elm Street films in Style and Formin the Hollywood SlasherFilm (2015), and the creation of Elfego Baca as a folk hero in "Don't Just Print the Legend, Write It: The Odd Construction of Elf ego Baca as Folk Hero" for Western Folklore (2015).

Dissertation Project

The popular understanding of the devil is of a visually different Other who deceives, tempts, and seduces good men and women away from God’s divine authority. He is often portrayed as an adversary and individuals or groups associated with him, such as Jews, Moors, and unruly women, are marginalized and marked as a threat. Yet a longue duree analysis of the English devil from the Anglo-Normans to the Restoration reveals an innately political devil who threatens power structures and defines English nationalism through negation. William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum describes devilish leaders as the greatest threats to England’s stability, who must be defeated by great leaders. Þe Deulis Parlement constructs the democratic collective of Parliament and free speech as demonic. Both I Henry IV and Macbeth demonstrate the dangers of devilish leaders who rebel, challenging the divine authority of the monarchy. Each of these elements; devilish leaders, demonic parliament, and diabolic rebellion are presentand revised in Paradise Lost where Satan is the vehicle for this concerns about English nationalism after the Restoration.